Ripping and cataloguing music CDs

I want to be able to rip the audio from my CDs into wma/mp3/ogg and store it on my PC. At the same time, I want to catalogue the CDsin a database on my PC by downloading the album info from one of the online CD databases. I want the database to be searchable and editable, so I can add extra fields of my own. Everything I have found does one or the other not both. Ian Nurser

I don't know of one either, but you could have a look at MediaMonkey. It does the burning and the database bit, but it may not be flexible enough. There's a comment field, and the blurb says: "The serious music collector can also assign a broad range of more advanced attributes, such as composer, original year and album, and lyrics."

Just from the dataase point of view, Music Collector looks a better bet. (What do other people use?)

However, you should think seriously about whether you are ripping your CDs temporarily or permanently. A lot of people converted their CDs at too low a quality and perhaps to the wrong audio format, which is fine if you don't mind doing the job again. To repeat some advice I gave earlier:

Although it is convenient to use WMP to create WMA files, and it does include a Lossless option, consider alternatives such as using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) to rip the CDs then converting to another format using Lame. There are several websites that will walk you through the process, such as Radified and The Coaster Factory. Hydrogen Audio has a good guide to setting up EAC and can also help with using EAC to create FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files: see http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_and_Flac.